Ummm...okay. And baseball bats surpass acoustic pianos at hitting baseballs. Baseball bats rule!

Digital Baseball Bats Rule !!!

HAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh I got a good laugh from that!!

Acoustics always look cooler to play on so they'll win.

Wooden or Aluminum?

This morning I listened to all 52 pieces of the ABF's Recital VII, without having looked to see who recorded what on which piano. Then I checked to see which I guessed as accoustic versus digital. I didn't get a single one wrong. While some of the digitals sound quite nice, they are simply not the same. And I'm not saying I thought *all* the accoustics sounded superior. Not all did. But I still find the digital sound rather synthetic and easily detectable. Reminds me of the difference between an old well-engineered piece of vinyl with sounds captured well outside the 20-20,000 htz range versus a CD. Something of the essential texture of the sound is missing. "Is it live or Memorex?" I think I can tell.

An "acoustic" baseball bat must be swung in the traditional manner by the batter while with a "digital" baseball bat, the batter simply holds the bat over the plate as the ball approaches. An electromagnetic field generated by the digital bats "sweet spot" will ensure that the approaching ball hits the best part of the bat every time. Once contact is made between the ball and bat, an opposing electronic force is released thereby sending the ball in the opposite direction. The angle in which the batter holds the bat will determine the direction of the ball...i.e grounder to third, high fly to center field, etc.

It is only a matter of time until this technology is used in just about everything we do... [Digital golf, digital bowling,etc).

Many Police depts have already gone to "digital guns" in the form of a Tazer, (now your really laughing right because this is actually true!!); and I am currently working on developing a form of "digital fishing" that does not utilize a conventional fishing pole and lure, but rather an extension cord and a portable power source!.

What a great experiment, ChickGrand! Wish I had thought to do that. Maybe next recital.

And very impressive that you were able to tell, given the primitive recording setups most of us were using. Or, maybe the fact that you were able to do so with such high accuracy DESPITE the primitive recording setups etc. suggests that the gap between digital and acoustic is still pretty high.

[Edit: Or perhaps it is the primitive recording setups that are the give-away; perhaps you were picking up more on microphone hiss, ambient room noise, etc. on the acoustic recordings, whereas the digitals are going to lack all that extraneous noise given how they're recorded? ]

The more of this discussion I read, the more I am leaning toward the conclusion that digitals and acoustics are simply different beasts, with much to offer for different purposes.

But maybe the *real* question is whether the acoustic piano will survive as a viable instrument vs. being relegated to a status as interesting historical oddity. I hope not, but I can envision a future where only concert halls and music conservatories have acoustic grands and everybody else is playing digitals.

I quite liked mr-super-hunky's comments about resonance. It "echos" the reason my 8 year-old daughter recently gave for playing her violin: "because I love the vibrations it makes!"

Heya,

I'm not sure digitals will every really replace acoustic pianos! I've been going round searching for a digital (space, noise etc). I'm still young though - if I ever own a house with the space - it'll definitely be an acoustic piano.

Theres just something about them! Maybe knowing you can open the lid and see the hammer hit the strings... can't do that with the DP;s . Might just be my nature , but I quite value that.

Simon

Here's a little comparison test I recorded for a friend in the piano sampling business a few years ago:

http://www.sampletekk.com/proddemos/tso/Creeks%20of%20Missouri-TBO1.mp3

http://www.sampletekk.com/proddemos/tso/RR-demo.mp3

I think these are better than digital baseball bats. On a good day I can play either with one click of my mouse.

Howard

I don't think it was the recording quality that gives it away at all, as that varies enormously without regard to accoustic versus digital. I've listened to all the pieces amid all the 7 recitals and never had any problem knowing. Actually only one piece I've ever heard had me fooled on *first* listen, but not on a second closer listen.

For me, it's like comparing pointilistic painting (digitals) to photography (accoustic). The sound wave is simply *not* the same. That's why I likened it to CDs versus LP. There *is* more information in an LP, i.e., higher *resolution*. I'd wager that even the most sophisticated giga-sampled digitals would *still* fall short of replicating some of the fine interplay of sounds that emanate from an actual accoustic piano (well, except for something like one of those Winter spinets that sounds like a rubber band on a washtub always).

Actually, I was disappointed overall in the recital because and only because of that overwhelming predominance of digitals. I think they're far more forgiving and rather easier to make sound "musical" and therefore not as good a gauge of a person's actual technique. An accoustic piano gives away every fault in technique. But it also shows up every bit of wonderful understanding. Listening to the digitals, I felt I may just as well have been listening to midi-controllers connected to fair-to-middling sample providers. Among my many pianos, I have a high-end Kawai stage digital. Guess which one is the only one that never gets played? (Though that might change if I ever get around to hooking up that big Crown amp to the Magneplanar speakers and get into that pipe-organ voice.)

It isn't that they don't sound "good" or "musical". They just don't sound like a *piano* to these ears. They sound just like what they are--electronically generated waveforms.

And I am not arguing any of that. You'll see that I pointed out, there is no way we'll be able to exactly reproduce acoustics with current digital technology. There's plenty of threads on that already - and I fully agree with those - especially lack of feedback from pressing the key, and 2-point speaker limitations.

But it is bound to happen one day, with "virtual pianos" (which in a way will be distant grand-children of DPs of today). All the necessary "inaccuracies" of the acoustics will be modeled as well, to the point where you will have an exact replica in virtual world. I think it's pretty safe to say, that IF our technology advances far enough where we can produce Matrix style virtual reality - modeling a wooden box, with some wire in it won't be much of an issue.

Why would anyone chose to play that ideal replica, rather than the real thing? For one thing - it'll be cheaper (like the DPs of today). And also - it will offer you things you can't do with acoustics. You could for example, eliminate all external noise (including your breathing), and hear just the piano.

I just finished reading all of the comments, and noticed this thread got a little off-track, and some people confuse current Digitals, with my hypothetical Virtual Reality pianos. I'm not arguing the Digital Pianos as we know them will surpass acoustics. At the very best they'll become 99.999% approximation.

On the other hand, Virtual Pianos by interfacing directly with the brain, will be able to fool us 100%, and do much more.

Of course, this is all hypothetical, as Virtual Reality is still decades if not centuries away, but we'll get there sooner or later.

I changed the title of the thread to "Virtual" instead of "Digital" to eliminate some of the confusion.

As I see it, the art of the piano is the player. You create the music. With electronic devices you program the music and the electronics perfect the process.

I have both instruments, but I feel a cheat operating a digital instrument. Yes electronics can create art forms but surely that is a contradiction in terms.

I just wish the acoustic piano was as easy to play as the digital thing. I know this is controversial.

Alan (swingal)

This is not true. The noise floor of CD is many decibels (maybe up to 30dB or so) *below* an LP, and the bandwidth is significantly greater. It follows that the information content is greater. Forget thinking about the 'squareness' of digitised waveforms, they don't look like this when the squares are 96dBs down. Therefore any LP sound is perfectly reproducable at CD sample rates.

As far as DPs are concerned, the hurdle as mentioned by mr_super_hunky above is due to the lack of, erm, spacialness. There needs to be a speaker for every string, or some kind of 2-dimensional soundboard. The current setup of a couple of big speakers with some peripheral tweakers here and there is never going to compete with a real instrument, no matter how good the quality of the voice.

On the other hand, physically (as opposed to electronically) I can't see how DPs like the Yamaha CLPs can improve the action now they've incorporated the whole acoustic mechanism into the keys.

With all due respect twitchy, no DPs (except perhaps the Yam GTs or the Bosie) have incorporated the whole acoustic mechanism into the keys. They have incorporated mere subterfuges of most aspects of it into their keyboards and, IMHO, CLPs are far from offering the best in that department, so there is room for lots of improvement...

Regards,

Claude

Ah, OK, I stand corrected. I was under the impression that the Yamaha GH3 contained the full mechanical implementation of an acoustic action up to the hammer hitting a sensor.

If this is not the case then I agree there is room for improvement.

Kawai is closing in on the "Feel and Vibration"
aspect of Digital vs acoustic.

Kawai DP-1
TOUCH
Continuing the advancements of its multi-award winning predecessor, the KAWAI AWA Grand PRO II, 88 wooden-key action, closely reproduces characteristics of the acclaimed EX Concert Grand Piano. Its graduated action, with decreasing weight from bass to treble, offers the dynamic feeling of an EX grand, and is widely regarded as one of the best digital piano actions in the world.
Moreover, the DP1 features an innovative Key Vibration System, allowing the musician to feel delicate responses from each note. The intensity of key vibration can be adjusted and stored for every sound, providing a uniquely authentic playing experience.(Let's see if an acoustic
piano do that!)


SOUND
The authentic sound of KAWAI Digital Pianos began with the world renowned KAWAI EX concert grand piano. Placed inside an anechoic chamber, free of audio reflections, the rich sound of this world class grand piano could be perfectly analysed and recorded. From this recording, our Master Piano Artisans recreated a tone of supreme clarity, establishing a new standard in the art of digital piano design.
The DP1 employs a revolutionary sound generation system: samples without loops, string resonance samples, key-release samples, hammer striking samples and countless other audio subtleties combine to provide a richly authentic tone. Beyond the impressive selection of piano voices, the DP1 also offers a range of Electric Piano, String and Bass sounds suitable for various musical occasions.
Adopting a 5.1 surround sound system, the 10 loudspeakers integrated within the DP1 provide an unsurpassed level of acoustic reproduction, allowing adjustments to ambience, reverberation and position for a simply breathtaking experience.

I'm pleased to read that as I also have a Kawai ES4 digital it may sound quite good, though not I guess as good as the Kawai EX mentioned above.

It is really the ease of playing that makes me feel I am better than I really am. So cheating myself.

Nor do the digitals suffer with big humidity changes as we are having currently.

Swingal

virtual pianos WILL surpass acoustics

hahahahahahah! that's EXACTLY what they said 40 years ago;)

I suppose they'll surpass Stradivari, Guarnari, and Amati instruments as well then?

lol this has got to be the funniest thread I've ever seen

That Piano Turing Test idea sounds good....blindfold a pianist and put him in a room with an acoustic and a digital. He plays on both, then identifies them. When he isn't able to tell the difference, then technology has caught up with the acoustic piano.

I don't think that will happen for a long, long time.

I think the topic of this thread is fundamentally wrong. It is based on an idea that a virtual reality will be better than actual reality. That is why people take drugs. And I see this virtual world as no more than that, an escape from reality.
I suppose it would follow from your logic that in this virtual world we would also have virtual people who would surpass real people.
The whole idea is really sick. And I blame it on science fiction, video games, and youth.

Of course virtual reality will be better than actual reality, or else what would be the point of inventing it?

Why do you think people read books if its not to escape? Do you think books are bad too?

Too many video games I agree are probably not too healthy though, but hey, its better than kids running round stabbing people...(oh, they probably do that when they've finished playing)

Interesting conversation

Just one point about comparing the acoustic recordings to the digital ones in the recent recital. I may be wrong but I am pretty sure that every acoustic piano was mic'd or recorded through a zoom adding all the acoustics of the room into the recording and every digital was recorded line-in to a computer giving a very clean recording (which IMHO made it more or less childs play to spot the difference )

I was just wondering if someone had mic'd a digital whether it would be quite so easy to spot?


Lee

when i video record my playing on my digital, that's mic'd through the camcorder's mic. the sound result actually is not bad at all, but not that clean as line-in recording, with some noises and even my finger nail clashing with key sound.

I'm quite interested what the result is of a blindfolded test.

Perhaps somebody can do it and send it to youtube; would be nice.

I'm looking forward to it.

Best regards,

Johan B